ROZ (and joshua and me): THE WINDRIDER SUMMER SHORT FILM SERIES

- from John Marks’ blog on the Purple State of Mind website

What kind of a jerk would you have to be to object to anything in Charlene Music’s ROZ (and joshua), the final film in the Windrider Summer Shorts series? I mean seriously.

It’s a three-minute-seven-second documentary about a homeless woman who has a son named Joshua, never shown, whom she is trying to raise right after a stretch in prison. Roz is black. She looks exhausted. She cleans streets and lives in her car. Director Charlene Music does us a favor and gets out of the way and lets us enjoy our fleeting moment with her.

Rather than try to pretend to critical distance, I’ll say just this. I could have done without the soundtrack. “No matter how you slice it, “Jesus Loves Me” is tired.

Otherwise, I highly recommend this brief encounter. It’s hard to imagine another medium that would deliver Roz so up close and personal without turning her into tooth-killing treacle.

Thanks to Windrider for sharing a last gem with us.